Data from Acled and the Global Terrorism Index shows that after a few years of improvement, insecurity in Nigeria has worsened. With general elections less than a year away, the crisis has come under increasing scrutiny – both abroad and at home.

Experts say the primary long-term driver of insecurity is a governance vacuum across much of the country. On paper Nigeria is a federation comprising 36 states and 774 local government council areas, but in practice power is heavily centralised at the federal level. Resources trickle down to states in limited quantities and are distributed in far smaller amounts to local government councils, largely at the discretion of governors.

As such, vast swathes of Nigeria consist of what academics and civil society groups call ungoverned and under-governed spaces, where non-state actors motivated either by extremist ideology or economic, political or ethnic marginalisation – or a combination of all the above – can move relatively freely, recruit, and plot attacks.

The situation is exacerbated by the thinly stretched nature of Nigeria’s security apparatus. The military, at about 230,000 personnel, is one of Africa’s largest, but it is fighting insurgencies on multiple fronts in the north and a secessionist movement in the south-east. The police force of around 370,000 officers translates to one officer per every 600 citizens, which is far below the UN-recommended ratio of one per 450. Indeed, in many communities outside the big cities and towns, the only government presence is an abandoned police post, dilapidated primary healthcare centre or barely functioning primary school.

On Saturday, the US and Nigeria said a joint operation had killed Abu-Bilal al-Minuki, the second in command of Islamic State globally, in Nigeria’s north-east. The US also targeted extremist militants in the north-western state of Sokoto late last year, and in February about 100 US soldiers arrived in the country to help advise its military on the fight against insecurity. Those strikes and deployments did little to stem the rising tide of violence.

Data sources and methodology

Data defining the Sahel geographic boundaries is provided by AtlaSahel. Political violence maps are based on a Guardian analysis of Acled conflict data. Charts data is taken from the Global Terrorism Index 2026 report.